Written By:
- Date published:
10:48 am, March 30th, 2026 - 24 comments
Categories: 2026 oil crisis, energy -
Tags: bryce edwards, Nathan Surendran, wise response
My basic position at the moment is a kind of contortion of trust in god and tie up your camel. We might get lucky and the worst that happens is the US/Israeli war against Iran ends but we have to tighten our belts this year while the global oil supply settles back into some kind of norm, and we spend the next few years rebuilding the global economy. This might even be the most likely thing to happen. But there are other potential scenarios here that are very bad. The core issue is that if we act now we can mitigate the worst of it. If we don’t act now, it has the potential to be catastrophic. I’m hoping for the best, but not relying on that.
I’m linking first to a cross-post of Wise Response’s guide: What can I do in response to the Fuel Supply Crisis in Aotearoa New Zealand?. Government should be acting sooner and better (and we should be pressuring them to do so), but even under the best of government, this is a situation that requires community and neighbourhood resilience and action. In my opinion this is the most important document people can read right now. The situation is frightening, and being informed and taking action are the best ways I know of how not to get stuck in fright. We are not powerless. The guide covers things we need to do that the government won’t be able to do.
We can also take political action. Talk to people in our lives, and demand action from our leaders. If you are feeling overwhelmed, don’t read the hard stuff, read the things that offer ways forward and proactive response.
Responses to the government’s National Fuel Plan
Following the government’s National Fuel Plan release on Friday, a number of people have pointed out the flaws. A couple of key articles from Bryce Edwards and Nathan Surendran.
Bryce Edwards on substack and twitter, Sleepwalking into the worst crisis since Covid? (27/3/26) gives a round up of recent responses to the emerging crisis in New Zealand and the government’s fuel plan announcement.
“Thought Covid was bad? If New Zealand runs out of diesel, Covid will look like the rehearsal.” That line from Matthew Hooton in the Herald this morning lands like a slap. Not because it’s designed to alarm, but because Hooton is making a precise argument, not a rhetorical one. During the pandemic, the circulatory system of the economy kept pumping. He explains today that trucks still delivered to supermarkets, harvesters still picked crops, milk tankers still collected from farms, and ambulances still ran. None of that is guaranteed now.
The Government today released the details of its National Fuel Plan — the alert-level framework for managing any move towards rationing. That is the right thing to do. But the real question is whether this Government, and the political class more broadly, has actually grasped the scale of what may be heading our way. There are growing signs it hasn’t.
There are some extraordinary things in there, including the reports of Chris Bishop telling the truth to an infrastructure conference about New Zealand’s vulnerability in the oil crisis (as well as what it means for National’s flagship roading policy) and the juxtaposition of that with the ‘she’ll be right’ public messaging.
Edwards also rightly makes a point of where the government is getting things right, but this is a knife edge between avoiding panic and failing to keep the public informed.
The political incentives here are obvious. The Government does not want to trigger panic buying, which can turn a manageable shortage into a crisis. That is a legitimate concern. But there is a line between responsible communication and misleading reassurance. If New Zealand ends up at Level 2 or Level 3 of the fuel plan in a few weeks, having been told the situation was fine, public trust will be difficult to rebuild.
I really wish Edwards would provide links, if you are following up on his post, please post the links in comments below.
The other essential read comes from Wise Response Chair, and mechanical and energy systems engineer specialising in energy transition strategy, Nathan Surendran: Every Country in Our Supply Chain Has Declared an Emergency. NZ just launched an Ad Campaign (27/3/26)
What should be happening
Three things, starting today.First, publish the actual depletion timeline. Not headline stock figures, but what happens if no more ships arrive. The public deserves to see the curve, not the snapshot.
Second, move to Phase 2 immediately. The government’s own triggers have been met. Voluntary demand restraint messaging should have started weeks ago. Every day of delay burns through stock that cannot be replaced at the current rate. Jumping straight from Phase 1 to Phase 4 will be unnecessarily destructive.
Third, quantify the allocation plan and prioritise food. Shane Jones himself has said it plainly: “A shortage of diesel would literally bring the economy to its knees.” He told CNBC: “You cannot have a food industry, you cannot have a forestry industry, you cannot have a fishing industry, you cannot have a horticultural industry unless you’ve got significant security and robustness about diesel supplies.” He is right. So act on it.
If I were making this call today, I’d be ring-fencing diesel for domestic food production now: arable crops, vegetables, the minimum livestock operations for domestic meat and dairy, and the transport to get it to market. Winter crop planting decisions are being made right now.
Hooton makes a more provocative version of this argument. NZ has food. Other countries want it. He suggests Luxon should use that leverage with counterparts in Singapore, South Korea, and Malaysia: food in exchange for fuel. He acknowledges this would require “some sort of state control over international trade that we haven’t seen since 1984.” But the scale of the potential crisis justifies it. Australia is already playing this game, using its coal and iron sands as leverage to secure diesel and petrol shipments. As Hooton puts it: “You want coal? Then gizza your diesel.”
This is not radical. Every country in our supply chain is already doing some version of this. We are the ones who aren’t.
Surendran covers a lot in that post: how the government’s plan is a framework without detail, how government is consulting on how to implement levels 3 and 4 and needs another 2 weeks to get the details (an obviously problematic timeframe if fuel supply becomes tight), that we should already be in phase 2 (voluntary restrictions), that force majuere is already happening in parts of Asia and the Middle East, that the war is intensifying and so on. Lots of detail there if you want it.
Surendran also challenges the economic orthodoxy,
The NZ conversation treats this crisis as a temporary logistics disruption caused by a geopolitical event that will eventually resolve.
…
The framing is wrong because it treats energy as a commodity to be sourced from somewhere else, not as the binding constraint on everything the economy does.
The economy is an energy system using money, not a financial system using energy. Money is a claim on energy. It has no intrinsic value. Central banks cannot print physical resources into existence.
…
Even if the Strait reopens tomorrow, the structural trajectory remains: rising extraction costs, declining EROI, cascading supply chain fragility, now compounded by destroyed extraction, export and refining capacity. This crisis is a preview, not an anomaly.
The good new here is that the things that make us resilient are also the things that solve the climate and ecology crisis. We have an opportunity here to change for the better. Imagine how different this crisis would look if we’d already electrified our economy. Once we get through the current mess, that’s what we can build on next.
Front page image from Nathan Surendran’s piece.
For a few seconds I was thinking of Cook Strait . . . .
But this is a very good and timely post.
Had dinner with Nathan Surendran (and others) on Saturday night. The food, was supplied by local 'organic' growers, some was wild-foraged from nearby, fruit juices pressed earlier in the day. Plenty to talk about 🙂
Two thoughts .
Is it really that hard to cut global use by 20%, the often touted numbe of stuck flow.
And National showed us how stupid they are by useing as a vote grab with the $50 bribe instead of handling that money to the essential trucking services.
National were thinking it was a cost of living crisis. Still a stupid policy.
I've been wondering about this too. One of the problems is that global oil supply doesn't get evenly distributed from different sources. That's why NZ might have serious diesel shortages while other countries are ok.
But even if that weren't true, now days people are very adverse to the idea of powering down. Conventional economics would say that kind of cut would be economically catastrophic, instead of seeing it as an opportunity to transition to a low carbon society. People are afraid of doing without. My grandparents raised their families during the Great Depression and WW2, so it's normal to me to think about how to work within constraints. But many middle class people have massive mortgages and are heavily invested in neoliberal lifestyles. The idea that they might lose some of that security frightens people I think. Whereas I think it's better to jump than be pushed.
I've heard talk of the potential of some countries possibly facing food shortages if this continues for too much longer. Suggesting the cost of food could soar.
With NZ tying local food costs to international market prices, we should be looking now at how we can temporarily halt that for local supply if need be.
We must not forget who it was that has caused us to be on the brink of a seriously constrained ability to be mobile and even fed. It is fucking America, crazed right wing think tank driven America,where Seymour gets his directions from. The US is not our friend, it only wants us to be its lackey. And this doesn’t end here, Trump wants to invade Cuba so they can deport as many Cubansback there as soon as possible. This is this century’s Evil Empire.
There's no better time to rip the plaster off the oil addicted industry we've been so entrenched in and start moving on to sustainable green tech. Been already transitioning for years.
We are addicted to energy. Trying to maintain our levels of use by any means is foolish.
We gotta power down.
Unfortunately "power down" for our last 150 years has simply meant towns were abandoned.
I'm sure there's a lovely theory and a bunch of righteous activists who say this time will be different like some luckless version of Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown, but they might want to have a chat first with the descendents of Denniston, Kelso, Macetown, Lyell, Waiuta, Matata …
… and the very long list of towns and villages that are already under material threat of shrinking out of existence like Kaitangata, Raetehi, Ohau and Nightcaps, Kawhia, Chatham Islands, Taumaranui, Mataura, and to not put too fine a point on it, the whole of Westport and Gisborne.
The first list are already Ghost Towns of New Zealand, and the second list are well on their way.
Ghost towns aren't powerdown, they're neoliberal induced collapse.
All those current towns you name are ripe for being Transition Towns, which by definition relocalise economies and prioritise the town over staying on the neoliberal bandwagon that doesn't give a shit about them which is why they've been abandoned by the state.
Powerdown is concept based in sustainability and resiliency. Lots of theory and practice out there. What I don't see is anyone who supports neoliberal BAU explaining how it will work as the global economy collapses under the climate/ecological crisis (or indeed a diesel shortage crisis).
I have no idea if this time will be different, but it's largely because the mainstream still has faith in the perpetual growth machine. We have a lack of imagination on how to do it differently, despite the reams of evidence.
for people that want to read what the Powerdown is, some posts,
https://thestandard.nz/tag/powerdown/
Nicely answered, weka, thanks. Powering-down doesn't mean un-plugging without preparation. I think of birds, having to bide their time in the branches between daylight and sleep – if only they had incandescent lights! Poor wee souls though, having to drive the turbines with their little feet. Better perhaps, to settle for what they had before.
There's a huge amount of filler in our system; do we really need reality tv?
I'd start by powering that down and out.
I like good visual stories told via the airwaves (or interwebs)! Lots of lower hanging fruit like heated towel rails and jet skis (unless repurposed for transport and fishing).
I'm ok with giving up TV. I think about the amount of energy and resources spent in making series and films and my mind boggles. It's about how to bring society along, will be interesting to see the public debate on what matters.
Government has asked for feedback on their fuel priority brackets, businesses first, everyone else can stay home apparently.
No one is interested in unproven concepts at this point in proceedings. Most New Zealanders are just in survival. We've been through this so many times, with so many nasty results. There's definitely no growth of any kind in the economy since 2022, other than to the elite in Queenstown and immediate surrounds.
Powerdown is currently so close in sense to the Steady State economy we got close to having in the late 1970s. Since this war is going to continue it's highly likely we are in for a 1970s-scale recession.
you're still comparing apples and elephants.
I have several things to say here:
The first is, that the last thing we should be doing is anything resembling price controls. And, to Weka's credit, that has not been suggested above. But, one thing learnt from Hurricane Hugo is that price controls exacerbate shortages.
The Australian government has just blinked and halved the excise duty on fuel. Again, a totally stupid move, because it will only have the effect of moving revenue from the government to the fuel companies. That is because, the thing driving fuel prices isn't excise duties. It is shortage of supply. Hence, prices will simply rise back to match the supply/demand curve, but the excise tax forgone will simply add to the profits by fuel companies.
The best way to ensure supply continues is to allow the market to set the price. High prices are a major problem. But, running out of fuel is far far worse. If the market is able to set the price, then it will be worthwhile for tankers to make the long trip down here to New Zealand, rather than to somewhere else. So, if the market is setting the price, then we won't run out of fuel. We will just have to pay through the nose for it.
Another point is that the high fuel prices at the moment is doing God's work so far as emissions go. In the news recently, EV sales are soaring, and people are using more public transport etc.
My prediction is that once this crisis is over, oil prices will crash. The reason is that there will have been structural changes away from carbon fuels that will lessen global demand.
Further to high fuel costs not happening in isolation, they immediately transfer to other essential products and services. Major problems begin, no matter your world view. Certainly some grim times ahead under that ideology. Also, oil prices may not crash, instead fuel may be seen to be "not worth the transporting to NZ" by fuel companies, as the desired profit can no longer be won. Where are NZ's plans for significant "structural changes" away from carbon fuels? We've been caught slipping on this, and unfortunately there is little anyone in government can do except the obvious, or to the present bunch, the odious.
If the price is high enough, ships will come. So, if they aren't coming it is because the price isn't high enough to make it worth their while. We just won't like what we have to pay. But, it is still better than running out of fuel altogether.
Should we, tsmithfield, as a country, do you think, borrow to pay a higher price for petrol, diesel and LNG?
If needs must, whether you live in Auckland, or say, Riverton. Lets hope it doesnt come to that though.
I'm backing Shanks' pony for the win!
Enzed has a ticket to ride – access to global emergency fuel.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/politics/360957298/new-zealand-has-ability-call-emergency-fuel-supply-heres-how-would-work
Develop extra fuel storage (diesel as well as existing plans for new jet fuel tanks)
https://www.thepost.co.nz/business/360977317/iran-war-marsden-point-owner-cant-commit-shane-jones-late-may-goal-extra-fuel-storage
Albanese outlines the situation and the months ahead.
https://www.tickaroo.com/e/GAen1SiTfHpXTGM1